By Roy B. Blizzard
Over the past few weeks, I have been asked several questions relating to Jewish law and the Ten Commandments. Due to a common misunderstanding of the Ten Commandments, I want to begin this week to look at the Ten Commandments from the Hebrew text and see if we cannot gain a greater understanding of just exactly what they mean. Because of the relationship between Commandments 1 and 2, we will study both of them for the passage in translation this week.
Exodus 20: 3-6
[3] You shall have no other gods before Me. [4] You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; [5] you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, [6] but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Translation:
There will not be to you other Elohim before my face. You will not make unto yourselves an idol or an image of anything in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You will not bow down to them nor serve them. For I am YHWH, your Elohim, a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth (generation) of them that hate Me, and doing mercy to the thousands who love Me and keep My commandments.
Comments:
As we shall see with the other commandments, these two commandments have been misunderstood and abused. Throughout the Biblical text the uniqueness of God is being presented. Monotheism is the foundation on which the Biblical text is built. Having just left a pagan society and having been surrounded by polytheism, God wants to emphasize to the Hebrew people that He is unique. They are not to make any idols – nor the likeness of anything on the earth, above the earth or under the earth – to bow down to and worship them as a God. The injunction is not to not have pictures or likenesses in one art form or another of animals or birds, nor does it tell us that we are not to play with dolls, etc. The injunction is to not bow down and worship any object as a god.
The first two commandments are to emphasize the uniqueness of God: there is only one God – YHWH – and Him only are we to serve.
